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Although I was born in Kew and have lived most of my life in the suburbs of London, I've never felt particularly English. My father's family came from Vienna, and his mother had a distinctly foreign accent, and served Wiener Schnitzel and apple strudel rather than lamb chops and spotted dick. She used to sit on the beach in summer, wearing a high-necked, ankle-length black frock and funereal black felt hat an odd sight among the English grannies in their casual sundresses and headscarves. I looked un-English, too, with dark hair and sallow skin. In fact on one occasion a gang of girls threw stones at me, taunting 'Blackie! Blackie!' And later, at university, I encountered sickening anti-German prejudice. However, this sense of being something of an outsider can be valuable for a novelist: it expands your sympathies and prevents you identifying too closely with any one race or type. I believe that the more open and eclectic writers can be, and the less fixed in creed, identity or even gender, the better for the writing. Such openness allows you to get under the skin of all your characters, however different they are from you. On the other hand, I am a product of my background in that I frequently write about London and the suburbs, and/or the pull between the two. People often snigger when they hear I live in Surbiton, that quintessence of suburban propriety. And yes, again, I feel an outsider amidst the net curtains and manicured lawns. Yet I do know suburbia in all its nuances, so it's tempting for me to use it in my novels, and several of them are set only a few miles from home in Cheam, Cobham, Reigate, Hinchley Wood. Appearances matter in the suburbs. You don't see many weeds or dirty cars. But underneath, all is not what it seems, and I'm interested in revealing the scandals, secrets and lies. When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself an author? I started writing at the age of 5 mainly poems and stories. Then I progressed to my first 'novel' at 11. Its title, 'A Pony at Last', was sheer wish-fulfilment. The only pony I saw as a townie was the milkman's scruffy nag, but I was wildly envious of those children in the horsy books who belonged to the Pony Club and took part in gymkhanas, and used bewitching words like withers, skewbald, martingale and fetlock. As I got older, my work became darker a poem I wrote at 13 begins, 'I am alone on life's disastrous sea'! When true depression hit me some years later, I stopped writing altogether a gap I now deeply regret. Although actually first-hand experience of the extremes of grief or indeed any other emotion can be fruitful for a writer. When I recovered, I started writing short stories. I also embarked on several novels, but these never seemed to get beyond Chapter 3 or 4. Novel-writing had to take a back seat while I tried to cope with the demands of a full-time job and a family. (In those days wives ironed shirts!) But in 1978 I got my lucky break. A literary agent who had read some of my stories invited me to lunch and said, 'I'll take you on if you write a full-length novel no excuses.' I was thrilled, yet so terrified of failure I wrote the whole 300 pages in bed, with a security blanket tucked up to my chin! That book, Absinthe for Elevenses, was published in 1980, and it was only then I considered myself an author. It had been one of my dreams since earliest childhood I'd also wanted to be a nun and/or a racehorse-owner, but all three callings seemed a tad ambitious. Even now, 14 novels later, I know what a precarious business writing is, and realize I could end up starving in the proverbial garret. I still need that security-blanket! Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way? What books have most influenced your life? As a child I read voraciously, everything from the Golden Treasury to Enid Blyton. Books were magical things that provided an escape from boring family evenings round the fire,or a diversion when you were confined to bed with chickenpox or mumps. One of my earliest books was Stars and Primroses, which introduced me to poetry heady things like metaphors and similes, though of course I didn't know their names then. But I was just as happy reading The Mountain of Adventure or Five go off in a Caravan. People tend to be a bit sniffy about Enid Blyton, but she taught me the importance of plot. When I was older, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene and Iris Murdoch all influenced me in different ways. I felt a jolt of recognition when I first read Hopkins' 'Terrible Sonnets'. Their sheer unadulterated grief was awesome, yet familiar. 'No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief ' Crime and Punishment also hit me between the eyes. How shallow other novels seemed, compared with its high moral seriousness. I could identify with Raskolnikov as he is torn between good and evil, repentance and despair. And I lapped up Graham Greene, responding to his Catholicism and his complex characters who battle against temptation, yet seem almost to challenge God to damn them. Iris Murdoch I love for her intricate plots and sometimes gloriously unbelievable characters with their high-falutin names; also for her interest in food (although she's reputed to have lived on biscuits and baked beans!) and for the way she can weave subtle philosophical points into fiction without a trace of heaviness. What music, if any, most inspires you to write? What do you like to listen to while writing? I find music wonderfully inspirational but not while I'm actually working. I prefer total silence to write, so when my daughter and two stepchildren were living here, things could be pretty hairy, especially if they were all playing their favourite music fortissimo while I was stuck on a difficult chapter. Church music is my first love. In Absinthe for Elevenses the arrogant psycho-analyst, Caldos de Roche, insists on having a Mass or oratorio playing at full volume when he's making love. It's the only sort of music, he declares, that is sacred and sublime enough. He seduces Ginny to an accompaniment of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and when I wrote the scene I did write to music. The great Mass thundered through the house as, blasphemously, I tried to co-ordinate the sexual and musical climaxes. In my latest novel, Lying, I again use religious music to provide drama and emotion. Alison, obsessionally in love with James, goes to spy on him at London's oldest Catholic church, St Etheldreda's, where he's been invited to a wedding. In fact he doesn't turn up, but she remains in the church, enthralled by the beauty of a sung Latin Mass something she's never before experienced. The effect it has on her is seminal to the plot. To make this scene authentic, I attended several Nuptial Masses at St Etheldreda's and sometimes got carried away, like Alison, by the singing and ceremonial, and would have to force myself back to work. The priest got quite used to seeing me sitting in the back pew making surreptitious notes! In Second Skin the music is very different hip-hop, jungle, drum 'n' bass all the things Catherine encounters in her new, trendy life. I, too, had to listen to such music, though I must confess I often found it baffling, if not downright painful. When I wrote the rave scene, I had hard-core techno blaring from the stereo, much to my suburban neighbours' horror. Beethoven they could take, but not System 7! What are you reading now? What CD is currently in your stereo? I tend to have about a dozen books on the go at once, although I rarely have time to read before the late evening, so it takes me ages to get through them all. I start with the ones that need most concentration at present these are Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter, God's Funeral by A.N. Wilson, two biographies of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Adam Phillips' Darwin's Worms. When my brain begins to flag, I usually turn to one of several short story collections currently Self-Made Man by Poppy Z. Brite, The Ugliest House in the World by Peter Ho Davies, and Curves and Bends and Cars That Won't Come Fast by Brian Fleming. I'm working on my own first collection, so I'm fascinated by other writers' short stories their style, tone, subject-matter, length. Finally (and by now it's getting late) novels often the most pleasurable bit of my evening. The two I'm reading at the moment are Destiny by Tim Parks and Music for Torching by A.M. Homes. Although utterly different in style and content, both happen to combine caustic humour with a deep understanding of the pain and confusion underlying an apparently happy marriage. And both portray characters on the edge, facing breakdown and disintegration. Yet they're not depressing in the least. On the contrary, they make me feel exhilarated, and dazzled by their authors' insights. The CD in my stereo is Faurι's Requiem. I can't seem to get away from church music. God and death what a combination! I also love old musicals. Just hearing names like South Pacific, Oklahoma! and Kiss Me Kate takes me back to my teenage years when I longed to ride in a surrey with a fringe on top, and dreamed of marrying Howard Keel! What are you working on? A collection of short stories, called Dreams, Demons and Desire, to be published in 2001. I find the idea for a short story often springs from a tiny incident which has significance and resonance way beyond its apparent import. For example, I recently had my first-ever manicure a present from my daughter in Seattle. But ungrateful mother that I was, my new red talons seemed alien growths, hampering rather than beautifying. This became the catalyst for a story, 'Glossy Daggers', which moves beyond the superficial glamour of the nail salon to the more turbulent areas of death, anger and mourning. The woman in the story has lost her husband, and indeed many of my stories centre on loss not just of significant others, but of childhood, faith, or freedom. This may sound depressing, but the actual writing of a story can in fact help the writer (and maybe the reader too) come to terms with grief and loss. Another advantage of the short story is that you can write whatever 'ignites' in your subconscious, without the burdensome structure of a long, complex novel, in which all the various plot-strands have to be resolved. And stories can be surreal and enigmatic. You can leave things unexplained, or provide just a glimmer of light through the curtain rather than the spotlight's glare. Here write about whatever you wish In my experience, the most time-consuming part of fiction-writing is working on language and style. I'm always amazed to hear of an author completing a book in a couple of months. Perhaps I'm just a slowcoach but I can easily spend all day on a couple of pages, trying to find more vivid or original words, avoiding clichιs or the first easy formulation. Sometimes it just doesn't happen, and then I'm as frustrated as I imagine a man must be when he can't get it up. But other times, the words seem to flow. My third novel, After Purple, poured out of its own accord, perhaps because its themes were close to my heart. Certainly it helps if you feel passionately about your subject. For instance, I adore St Etheldreda's Church, so when I described it in Lying I could draw on my own enthusiasm. For Alison, the child of atheistic parents, it's more captivating still. The heady combination of music, incense, stained glass and ancient stone seems to transport her to a different realm, and makes her realize what has been missing in her life.
I also love writing about food. In my short story 'Paraquat' the seriously obese Mr Lely devours eleven loaves at a sitting. He's so enamoured of fresh-baked bread he feels he could write an ode in its praise: the soft white yielding flesh beneath the freckled crust, the moist warmth and doughy fragrance, the voluptuous dimpled curves. |